


red string of fate

by zadonis



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: All that stuff, Fate, M/M, Soulmates, but not really by name, non-au, the other boys are sort of in it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-29
Updated: 2015-07-29
Packaged: 2018-04-11 22:34:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4454999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zadonis/pseuds/zadonis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>inspired by jadethirstwall‘s post on tumblr:  “maybe at the beginning of the universe, zayn and liam’s atoms were really close to each other. and maybe that’s why they keep drifting towards each other”</p>
<p>OR a ziam drabble where there’s a lot of talk about atoms and stars and fate and the moon and how eventually everything will find its way back together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	red string of fate

In the beginning, everything started out together, clumped into the one tiny speck that became the whole universe after the Big Bang. Or at least that’s what most scientists say.   
  
And after the beginning, the atoms were dispersed through the universe to make stars and planets, people and plants and creatures that are yet to be discovered. And ever since then, since that explosion of life and color and time, those atoms from the beginning have been fighting to get back to their neighbors, the ones they were most attracted to before the Big Bang.   
  
That’s fate. That’s soulmates, destiny, whatever you want to call it. That’s five strangers getting thrown together and rising up and up and up through the ranks of the world to be seen in the eyes of the people that inhabit this planet, to become the closest thing to living stars as the world knows. And it’s one of those boys looking at another with stars in his eyes and the universe dripping from his tongue. It’s the boy who sets the stars in the eyes and brings life to that universe leaning closer and laughing, resting a warm hand on a shoulder that craves the touch like the moon craves the sun. And that’s just what it is.   
  
It’s two souls, two bodies, composed of atoms that have known each other from before time and space existed. A set of atoms that has travelled inconceivable distances to be there in that one solidifying moment to become that particular life to follow that particular path to meet its particular organization of other atoms that it has known.   
  
And they know it. How could they not know that there had to be some greater power at work on them? How could they miss the buzz of their skin when they’re near each other, or the way their limbs ache to hold each other, to brush a finger down the arm, to fit together so tightly that they merge into one (like they were in the beginning?) It’s silly and neither of them voice what they know, only whisper it to themselves into the night, up to the moon and the stars that already know the truth and wait with bated breath to see how long it will take.   
  
And eventually the worst thing happens. The moon leaves its sun, and suddenly the sun is wondering if perhaps he was the moon all along. He doesn’t glow so bright anymore, losing himself in shadow without the other, the one that brought a smile to his eyes, a beat to his heart. It all feels wrong to him, like the magnetic poles switched, or just vanished all together and suddenly he’s lost, drifting away from what was once the solid ground underfoot. It’s not right. They were drawn together for so long, thrown together in the most perfect of ways, and then his other half (he knows that’s what they are - each one half of a perfect whole) left him, slinking away to what seemed the other end of the universe.   
  
And the other, the moon turned sun suddenly is sure that he’s no longer a moon, dependent on the sun for life. No, he’s got himself for that, although there are the nights where he feels hollow inside, as if his heated core has vanished, and that’s not right, but he can’t go back to being a moon no matter how much his atoms drag and pull him, needing to return to that place. He won’t go.   
  
Neither of them know that there’s an entire history of the universe centered around their atoms; stories, legends, epic tales written and told of their atoms coming clashing together into a beautiful conception of colors and sounds and lovely brilliant life. Neither of them know that you can’t resist the pull of fate, that the needs of the universe are greater than their denials of love. Neither of them know that not everything exists in black and white, in moon and sun, in greater and lesser.   
  
There is an equilibrium to the universe, a way things must be because unbalance is highly frowned upon and will not be tolerated. They should’ve known that the universe gets its way in the end even if its way is simply a chance run in at the grocery store late one night, early one morning when all of the world around them is asleep. They should have known that the universe is expanding even as it is shrinking and their atoms will be together from the beginning to the end and back again. But the universe’s way for them is not so simple, somehow they managed to tangle that ridiculous red string of fate into a very complicated knot.   
  
The way is texting each other “hey what’re you up to?” and waiting for a response for hours, tapping nails and feet and snapping at anyone that asks what’s got them so on edge. The way is replying after nervously pondering the answer and eventually settling on “not much. thinking about…” dinner or family or music. Any number of those things. The way is passing silly texts back and forth, using ridiculous emojis that sometimes don’t make sense, and the occasional photo of the sunset or a new tattoo or a pouting selfie with the caption “i miss you.” The way is finally, finally being in the same city.   
  
It’s a big city, so big and bright that the stars have to walk on the streets just to be seen (although this kind of star normally prefers to go unseen) and so busy that the atoms in their skin thrum as if they could fall to pieces. It’s in this big city where they run into each other accidentally intentionally coincidentally on purpose as if they’d not both know that they were both in town to visit the studio. And it’s in the elevator of all clichéd places where the reflective black walls and the panel of glowing numbers are the only witnesses to their blushing cheeks and suddenly shaky fingers and humming hellos.   
  
Never mind that they go off in two separate directions to work in two separate studios with two separate producers for two separate albums. This is the closest they’ve been to each other in months and that knowledge vibrates along both of their skins, hums in their voices as they sing words inked into their memories that they’d written about each other (not that they’d admitted it to anyone except their trusty old confidantes the stars). And it’s silly, really silly that when they each leave the studio at different times that night, they’re both still thinking about the other, thinking about how the moon to their sun, the sun to their moon has returned at long last because they still haven’t learned that important lesson that not everything comes with an opposite. Sometimes they just need to find the balance.   
  
More months down the line when two albums are being released, sending the world’s media into a tizzy, maybe it’s then that they’ll realize that they’ve found the equilibrium the universe craves or at least a small part of it. They’re not a moon and a sun, but two suns spinning side by side, using the gravity of the other to keep upright. Maybe it’s then that they’ll realize that that song on the other album, the one that the writing credits say was written only be them, that song is about the other. Maybe then, as one lays in bed with his eyes closed fingers contemplating about tapping a message into his phone he’ll feel his heart yearning, the atoms reaching out for the other boy who is on the other side of the planet with the other three boys. Maybe the one sitting on a couch in front of a camera, boxed in by three other sets of atoms that don’t quite fit his as well as another, maybe then he will realize that the throbbing in his lungs in his bones in his blood since that day years back is a sign that the blood of the universe is running in his veins and it ruins in the veins of the other.   
  
The interview isn’t over fast enough; he stutters out the quickest thank you to the woman who had asked him about that song, about the one song that made the album that’s about his boy who puts the stars in his eyes and brings life to his universe. And before he should really be leaving, he’s gone, returning to his soulmate atoms that have been by his side since before space and time.   
  
The universe works in a strange way.   
  
Once upon a time, there was an explosion, a boom of life that resulted in two boys on one small planet in a small galaxy in a very tiny part of the infinite universe. And those two boys were soulmates. They existed together until the end of the universe.   
  
Then they started over again, saying things like “right next to you, liam.”


End file.
